Valorization of water hyacinth biomass for bio-oil production using a novel combinatorial approach of UV/H2O2 advanced oxidation process pretreatment and catalytic fast pyrolysis over ZSM-5

In order to improve bio-oil quality from water hyacinth biomass, a novel UV/H2O2 advanced oxidation process pretreatment is implemented coupled with shape-selective catalytic fast pyrolysis over ZSM-5. Characterization results demonstrate that UV/H2O2 pretreatment is an effective method to remove oxygen in biomass feed, and cellulose content can be enriched by delignification. Py-GC/MS results show that UV/H2O2 pretreatment can favor oil fraction production, and the combinatorial use of ZSM-5 catalyst promotes the formation of hydrocarbons and monocyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, while the contents of acids and phenols in oil fraction decay dramatically. Finally, response surface analysis is conducted to investigate the two pretreatment experimental variables, namely, initial H2O2 concentration and pretreatment time, on the relative contents of certain vital chemicals in oil fraction. The regression equations between the compound contents in bio-oil and the two experimental variables are established, and the best-fitting models are quadratic regression equations.